Chapter 13 Assault and Surprise
While Admiral Heero Yuy was busy, planning the next move of the joint Zaft, Orb and Earth Alliance military alliance against of the Preventers more military operations was already taking place. Just outside the massive navy base on Sicily, a pair of guards sat in a small shake watching some TV.
"And welcome back, our special guest tonight has written a book on the history of the Gundam Wars." Said the late night host as she spun around in the chair before moving toward another table where an old man and glass sat waiting for her.
"I hate these stupid book interviews," complained one of the guards "I wish they just did another joke segment instead of this."
"Same here." confirmed the other guard as he looked up from the TV screen only to see a flashing light. "looks like someone tripped the motion sensors."
"Probably a squirrel or something like that." countered the first guard as the second stood up and picked up his assault rifle from a rack by the door.
"I am going to go check it out." explained the second guard as he walked out the door and into the normally public park located on the waterfront across from the naval base. From this location people could watch the warships come and go, there was even boat ramps for people to put their personal boats in the water. From this spot, he could see the lights of the city and most importantly the navy ships in the harbor along with the base itself.
The guard moved down the concreate sidewalk toward where the sensor had gone off every ten yards a street light was on but because of clouds there was no moon or stars out covering the park in darkness. The young guard began to shake a little as his flashlight beam pierced the darkness suddenly the sound of movement and hushed voices reached his ears. Instantly he raised his rifle turning on the small tactical light at the end of the barrel.
"This is Preventer Military Police come out or I open fire." yelled the guard as he spotted a figure by a large tree.
"Stop!" yelled a male voice as a shirtless teenager stepped out from the darkness followed moments later by a blonde young woman about his age holding a blanket up to her chest.
"God damn it." cursed the guard as he lowered his gun at the two high school age teens "Don't the two of you realized that the park is closed because of the conference."
"I told you," snapped the woman as she playfully slapped the young man's chest.
"Listen I'll need your two names." Explained the guard
"Please, our parents think we are at a study group we would be killed if they find out." Pleaded the girl as the guard rolled his eyes as he looked around, there was a six-pack of beer, two of them opened and a box of condoms sitting on the grass by the tree.
"Alright, I'll say I spotted two unknown figures running away and they left two beers and some condoms. The higher ups will not pay it any mind," explained the guard.
"Thank you." Said the man
"We keep the beer." explained the guard as he walked forward and picked up the six-pack "Now get going and consider yourself lucky."
With that, the two teenagers ran off toward the parking lot where a car was waiting and the guard began to walk back to the shake. He walked down the waterfront cursing the stupid kids not realizing that the teenagers had not set off the alarm and the people who did where watching him from the water.
"Contact moving back to shake with some beer." Said a figure dressed in a black water assault combat gear including a large re-breather system on his back. In his hand was a silenced sub machine gun the holographic reticle locked on the guard's chest.
"Let him pass," ordered a voice in his wrapped around helmet.
"Let's go Phantoms we have work to do." ordered the figure in the water of a seven other figures began to swim out from under the wooden docks. "We have a long distance to swim to reach our targets."
With that, the team dove under water and began to swim across the wide bay toward the Preventer Naval base. They met not problems that they hadn't prepared for the anti-swimmer nets didn't go all the way to the bottom of the bay and since they didn't use diver propulsion vehicle there was no sonar sound to alert the Preventers. It took longer than they liked to swim the distance but soon they reached the primary target, the massive Mobile Suit Aircraft Carrier, which dominated the harbor.
"Place charges" ordered the leader over his built in radio as two divers moved up each with a dinner plate sized objects in their hands. These where Earth Union Water Demo charges nicknamed O-Disks, it was a disk with strong manganic on one side designed to stick to hauls even when they are moving and a radio detonator which would go off when the right radio signal was sent. The rest was packed with a powerful waterproof plastic explosive. The shaped charge would punch through the haul of the ship and if placed right would sink it. The two divers placed their charges in the planed spot, one under the one of the propellers/engine room and another under the pumps designed to get the water off the ship incase of a haul breach.
"In place." reported one of the divers as she pulled the small orange pin arming the charge.
"Move out we have of work do before sunrise," ordered the Phantom leader as they moved on to their next target in the harbor.
The sun was just rising over sea as Lacus Yamato sat on a large balcony outside her bedroom. On the small table was some freshly baked bagel and some tea. She was not a coffee drinker like her husband she preferred a cup of warm tea with a drop of lemon. Sitting beside her digging into a small plate of eggs and bacon was Miriallia.
"I will give this place one thing; they still use actual paper for newspapers instead of tablets." stated Miriallia as she looked at her own paper. "There is just something about having a paper in your hand instead of a computer tablet."
"I actually prefer the tablet." expressed Lacus
"I was mixing with some of the reporters and you are not that loved here." commented Miriallia to her friend and employer.
"Well we are in unfriendly territory, Kira and the rest of the council didn't want me to come here." noted Lacus as she looked at the headlines.
"I wish you hadn't either," confirmed Heero as he walked toward the woman, he had not changed into his uniform and there was visible bags under his eyes.
"Long night with your friends?" laughed Miriallia
"I wish." stated Heero as he sat down at the table.
"What happened?" asked Lacus as she noticed the tone in Heero's voice; it was the same voice that he used whenever the situation was deadly.
"I got a message from Deakra and Yzak may have just screwed us all," explained Heero as pushed a computer pad over the fine white lace tablecloth toward Lacus "Yzak has eight spaced based beam weapons all ready to fire."
"What they make him sound like he is on his last legs," stated Miriallia
"Well he isn't." stated Heero "I spent most the night searching for it and I have found them, I need your permission to launch an attack mission to take these weapons over."
"You have a plan?" asked Lacus as Heero nodded his head as she looked down at the outline of the plan he had made. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Am I 100% sure, no.?" admitted Heero "But this is where I would place them if I was Yzak and everything else matches up."
"Good enough for me." confirmed Lacus as she looked at the rules of engagement Heero had recommended. For Special Forces missions a level system had been developed for rules of engagement with the first level being no injuries what so ever and the fifth being free to kill anyone they meet. "Fifth freedom? But this said there may be children."
"Yes, we cannot risk them firing those beams weapons or millions of people including children could be killed." Explained Heero as Lacus placed her hand under her chin and bit her thumb. It was a nerves tick she did whenever she was nervous.
"Fifth Freedom for any adult but fourth for children." ordered Lacus
"There may not be time for our forces to switch to none deadly weapons." countered Heero but Lacus wouldn't hear it.
"I will not let children die." ordered Luna as Heero nodded his head knowing he could not win.
"Very, well. Can I give the orders?" asked Heero
"Yes." confirmed Lacus as she thought about how she was going to explain this in the meeting in the hour. Quickly she turned toward an aid, the only one she brought along in fact.
"Jess can you take a message to their president and express my deep apology but we must delay the meeting by an hour and a half. Tell him we are waiting a message from the governments in our home universe." Ordered Lacus as the aid nodded her head and moved off to carry out her orders.
"I hope you are right Heero." Admitted Lacus
"So do I" confirmed Heero
Just over two and a half hours later, a whole hour and a half latter then the meeting was supposed to start Admiral Yuy dressed in his dress white uniform sat across the table from Commander Zechs Merquise. To Heero's right was Lacus who was once again drinking from a cup of hot tea while to either side of Zechs was Relena, Lady Une and President Barker. Standing in the corners of the rooms where a pair of Zaft and Preventer guards.
"I must thank you for a delay we have had some developments." expressed Lacus as she turned to Heero.
"From Dearka we have learned that Yzak has built eight beam cannons pointing at the Earth." Reported Heero as the Preventers eyes widened at the news "The weapons are based off a rejected Preventer weapon called a DIB."
"A directional Ion Beam." reported Lady Une "You're saying Yzak has eight of them."
"What are we dealing with?" inquired President Barker
"Each one of them is capable of destroying about an area the size of twenty city blocks in a single fire." reported Heero
"Are you trying to scare us into a deal?" asked Relena
"No." reported Heero as he glared at Relena "If we were would we have launched an operation to take over the beam weapons."
"You're doing what?" asked Lady Une as Heero pulled out a small lap top and began transmitting data into the network, almost instantly the same image on Heero's screen appeared on a large monitor built into the wall at the end of the room.
"This is a live video from one of your spy satellites pointed at grid H 120, J 79." explained Heero as the image of the moon's surface appeared on the screen. The computer zoomed in on a style moon base used in the factory or parts for the first colony. It had been abounded long ago since it would cost less to build new moon factories then update the first ones.
"It's an old base what of it?" asked Relena
"Notice the eight new silos and the defense missile batteries?" asked Zechs as he looked at the image and saw eight new silos built into the surface of the moon a circle shape around the base. "Let me guess they are covering the beams weapons?"
"We believe so." confirmed Heero as he typed a few buttons as a smaller screen appeared beside the main one. This one showed darkened room with a multiple fingers dressed in dark gunmetal gray armor including a black visor over the face. Most of the figures had short submachine guns with silencers others had larger rifles and one had a shotgun. One of them was kneeing in front of a computer terminal with a wire running from a small computer pad to the terminal.
"Lieutenant this is Admiral Yuy." said Heero into his computer as one of the figures raised a hand to his helmet.
"Admiral we beginning hack now." reported a voice as everyone around the table realized they were watching the battle live from a helmet camera.
"Looks like we have a five level base with a control center on the bottom floor." reported the Lieutenant.
"Where is the power supply?" asked Heero
"The base seems to be powered by twin nuclear reactors with solar panels as backup which is bad." stated the Phantom Squad Lieutenant, Heero had ordered up every last Phantom squad member he had left for this attack. This attack would be the single largest in Phantom squad history with everyone single member minus the teams sent to Earth taking part. "The reactors are too far apart for a single N-Jammer and judging from these reading the solar panels are enough to fire one of the weapons by themselves."
"Can you get a visual on the hanger?" inquired Heero
"One moment." reported the team leader as the computer expert kept working.
"How did you get an assault team inside an enemy base?" inquired Zechs
"They walked." Reported Heero "They landed outside their radar zone and journeyed on foot and entered the base through an airlock. Once inside they recorded they hacked the camera feeds and began to play them back, only high traffic areas where not lopped since it would be highly noticeable."
"And who the hell are you to launch this operation without our permission." Snapped President Barker
"We are trying to save lives." rebutted Lacus
"Sir, I got feed from cameras in the hanger." reported the computer expert "Displaying now."
Instantly the view on the screen changed to show a large underground hanger equipped with multiple cranes and mobile suit bays all of them filled with space Leos painted a bright red with the Neo Zaft symbol on the side. Teams of men and women floated around in helmet less space suits getting the mobile suits ready. On top of the mobile suits, they could see space fighters and civilian transports all sitting waiting to take off.
"I believe that is confirmation?" said the Lieutenant's voice "Do we have a go ahead with the mission."
Heero waited for a moment before looking across the table, his eyes did not rest on the head of state instead he looked at Relena.
"Begin the assault," ordered Heero
"Understood, this is team Leopard and Silvertip we are moving out" said the man as the team began exited the small-darkened room and entered a long brightly lit corridor. The man they where following in the heads up display seemed to be in the middle of the formation.
"Hatch." whispered the man in the front of the formation as he pointed toward a hatch. The Point of view man was one the men who opened the door only to find a darkened room.
"Contact" whispered a voice as the screen changed to an off green as night vision turned on. Once it was on the room filled with shapes, bunk beds each one of them filled with children.
"Looks almost like a summer camp," noted Lacus as the heavy armed and deadly man of Phantom squad moved down the line of beds with guns ready.
"No threat, seal and move on." Came a voice as the two men moved out and closed the door behind them before placing a small disk over the door seam.
"What is that?" inquired Relena
"It's a lock, it will seal the door preventing them from entering the fight." Explained Heero as the team began searching multiple rooms only to find the same basic thing. Dorm room full of sleeping people ranging in age from newborn to elderly couples after each room they cleared they sealed the door preventing them from getting out.
For a while, everyone was glued to the screen watching apart from Relena who was looking down at a small computer pad of her own. Heero watched as she pushed the pad across the table to her President who looked down at the screen reading the message, before pressing his thumb down.
"What did you do?" inquired Heero
"We are placing our military on standby for incase this fails." Reported the President, Heero was about to respond when the puff…puff…puff sound of a silenced gun came over the broadcast.
"Contact down." reported one of the men as the image of a dead man with a hole in his head appeared on the screen. The team moved to the elevator at the end of the hall pressing the down button.
"The reactors and the control room are at the bottom floor, once we take them out and we will have control over the weapons," reported the Lieutenant as the elevator door opened to show a man holding a coffee cup. He did not even look up from his computer pad as he prepared to step off the elevator and he never did. With a move one of the strike team pulled out a stun gun and stunned him where he stood.
"Restrain him, team Silvertip with me, Leopard secure the prisoner and move down the support the Whale." Stated the leader as he and half the team stepped onto the elevator. "45 seconds to bottom, prepare to go load."
"Whale?" asked Relena to Heero but it was her brother who answered.
"Must be a code named for something, Whale, Leopard and Slivertip are all types of sharks so I am guessing this Whale is another team." explained Zechs as Heero nodded his head as the first person point of view minimized as the above view of the base appeared however three objects where zooming toward the base low and fast.
"They had prepared all their defenses to protect against an all-out assault with mobile suits so we went another way." explained Heero as the computer zoomed in on the three fast moving objects. The two lead ones where smaller, they appeared to be some kind of space fighter not really that different then the fighter jets that they use to support Ares mobile suits. The last one was larger with a box like shape and two swept wings coming straight off the front and next to no tail.
"Firing on Hanger door." Reported a new voice as the two lead fighters launched a stream of missiles toward the hanger door before breaking off. The larger ship actually increased speed as it made a headlong charge toward the hanger door slightly behind the
Relena's eyes darted toward the smaller screen, which showed the hanger security camera. There was nothing that she could do as the missiles ripped open the hanger doors and the atmosphere began to rush out. She actually saw a hand full of people get sucked out into space while others rushed to get their helmets on. Luckily it had become standard to have a built in flex emergency helmet in case of decompression, all anyone would have to do is press a button and the helmet snapped forward and locked into position.
Relena watched as the second craft came shooting through the hole opened in the hanger door, and to her amazement, it did not slam into the far wall, instead it came to an almost perfect stop in the center of the room. For a brief moment nothing happened then machine guns began to open up from multiple turrets on the craft.
"That is an Earth Alliance Space Assault Troop Transport," explained Heero as groups of marines began dropping from hatches in the bottom of the craft as well as coming out of the top. Even without any sound Relena could almost hear the gunshots and explosions as mini missiles shot out from the transport and disabled a Leo which had started moving. The defenders had started firing back they had been caught by surprise and the Phantom commandos which was began dropped off were experts in space assaults, having taken multiple pirate bases over the years. "The troops nicknamed them Whales for some reason."
While people's eyes were on the battle in the hanger, the other Phantoms on the moon had reached the main control room, which was at the bottom level of the base. The people did not stand a chance as the doors opened and the Phantoms came out shooting. It was a blood bath as the phantoms gained control of the command center.
"Cutting all power to weapons." reported the computer aid.
"Admiral we have control of the weapons, control over the base within ten minutes." Came the voice over the speaker.
"Very, Good. Save all those you can." Ordered Heero
"Contact, we have enemy mobile suit contact!" yelled one of the pilots of the fighters.
"What?" asked Heero as he zoomed in on a flight of ten red Taurus coming down on the two fighters from above.
"They must have been hiding somewhere," stated Lady Une as the two fighters turned to engaged the enemy suits but it was two against ten. The Taurus mobile suits opened fire as the two fighters tried to avoid the attack, but one was not able to. The lead fighter exploded in a massive fireball.
"Lead is down, I say again lead is down." yelled the pilot of the lone fighter just dodging the fire as he tried to avoid dying.
"Pull back I got this!" came a female voice as one of the Taurus exploded in a fireball.
"Luna what are you doing there?" asked Heero
"I am saving our pilot." explained Luna as the Force Impulse landed on the moon.
"How did she get into space with her mobile suit? We have all the ports watched?" asked Lady Une as Heero simply grinned. "You would find a way wouldn't you?"
"Doesn't matter now." reported Relena with a strange unnerving smile on her face.
"Admiral I have detected incoming missiles." came the assault team leaders voice as Heero's and Lacus's head spun toward the screen.
"What?" asked Lacus
"We have launched multiple missiles coming in, fast!" yelled the Assault Commander "Radiation alarms! They are nukes! IMPACT in 30 seconds!"
"LUNA GET OUT OF THERE!" yelled Heero into his radio but it was too late as the screen went fuzzy as the radiation from multiple nukes exploded at the same time.
"What did you do?" asked Heero coldly toward Relena who simply smiled. The tone of voice as cold enough to make the devil himself turn and run but Relena kept smiling like a kid who had done something to be proud of.
"I have saved the world and you." reported Relena as Heero slammed the laptop lid down and stormed out of the room. Lacus said nothing as she stood up.
"You should all be ashamed of yourself," snapped Lacus with hate in her voice before her eyes locked on Relena "There was over 500 people on the base."
"Not anymore and they would have killed millions with those weapons." Defended Relena as Lacus stormed out the room followed by the guards.
"Relena what have you done." cursed her brother softly as he shook his head. "You killed Heero's wife."
"I killed someone who ensnared him, without her his heart will come back to me," explained Relena "And if it doesn't we had to destroy those weapons anyhow."
"You may have just caused a war we can't win." stated Lady Une "Heero will bring hell down upon us for this."
"Just wait and see." defended Relena "Heero will come to me by sunrise."
Just down the hall, Heero flung his bedroom door opened before slamming it. A few seconds after the door closed a pair of arms wrapped him up from behind.
"So did you miss me?" whispered his wife as Heero instantly relaxed.
"They nuked the fake coordinates I gave them, just as I feared." explained Heero as he spun around and pulled his wife closer, thanking God that he hadn't placed trust in the Preventers.
"It wouldn't have mattered anyhow, that was a prerecorded battle anyhow." expressed Luna as she forced him backwards toward the bed, undoing his belt as they went. "Talk later."
"Agreed." confirmed Heero as he was shoved down onto the bed by his wife his wife on top of him.
It was just before midnight as Relena sat out on her balcony looking up at the stars.
"Soon, Heero will sit beside me and together we will look up at the stars," said Relena dreamily to herself, she could see their future kids in her mind. She even had names picked out for them. "And then in time our kids will join us."
"Somehow I don't think so." came a voice as the chair across from her was pulled back as a woman she thought was dead sat down.
"You're dead! I killed you!" snapped Relena with venom in her voice as Luna simply grinned as she looked up at the sky.
"I am far from dead," confirmed Luna with a grin as she decided to rub salt into the wound "In fact I just left Heero's bed."
"YOU SLEPT WITH HIM!" yelled Relena
"He is my husband remember," laughed Luna before turning to a more serious matter "Don't think Heero isn't pissed off at what you did? You launched a nuke and tried to kill 500 people including children and Heero is even more defensive about children since he is going to be a father soon."
"WHAT!" yelled Relena as Luna smiled.
"We have an appointment once this whole situation is over." shared Luna as Relena's blood began to boil even more.
"Heero is going to have an unholy coordinator offspring?" yelled Relena as she saw her imaginary kids melt away in her mind.
"There is nothing unholy about that." expressed Luna with a slit announces "Before this we were actually considering the name Relena if it was a girl, but that is gone now there is no way Heero and I will name any daughter we have after you."
"I wouldn't want some unholy span of the devil having my name." snapped Relena as Luna's eyes narrowed with hate.
"You know Heero told me he wanted to kill you for launching those nukes." explained Luna "However now I want to do it as well."
"You will never kill me and Heero loves me." Snapped Relena
"You are living in a dream world, I actually feel somewhat sorry for you." said Luna as she looked up at the stars "You may want to watch this."
"Why?" asked Relena as she looked up at the clear night sky just in time to see three beams of green light pass across the sky. "What the?"
"If you thought I was dead why did you think that those eight beams weapons where destroyed as well?" laughed Luna as she stood up "Those where your unmanned missile satellite, the same one you launched the nukes from and we have your bases in our sight if you launch and attack they will go down."
"That is an act of war!"
"And launching nukes isn't? You have no idea the firestorm you kicked up back home; people will be calling for war in every major city on Earth and in Space. If you were smart you would end this now and agree to our peace terms," asked Luna as she walked through a door and entered the building. Relena stood up and ran from her seat to the door only to find the hallway empty, Lunamaria Yuy was gone.
Well I hope you liked this chapter, one thing I always felt was missing in the Gundam anime I have seen was some good old fashion foot soldier fighting. Now I hope you enjoyed everything in this chapter. Until next time please keep reading, Thanks Wilkins75.